Official Wrasslin' Thread (renamed to reflect the discussion)

Sun Wukong said

AEW Dynamite just had its second week in a row of ratings under 600k.

They've lost 50% of their audience in 4 years, but perhaps more shocking, they've lost 30% of that audience in ONE year. That's free fall.

I've said it before, but I genuinely don't think they make it to the end of the new TV deal they just signed. I don't know how you reverse this ratings and live attendance collapse they're going through.

Click to expand...

AEW started out as one big middle finger to WWE, right? Cody taking a sledgehammer to a throne, etc.......it was "no, you AREN'T going to be the only mainstream promotion on television" (well, mostly....shout out to TNA and whatever deer hunting channel they may still be on now).

But then the Bloodline story kicked off.......and Vince became less of a presence .....and oh hey, Cody himself made it back.......and suddenly WWE was no longer something people griped constantly about. In fact, people actually became comfortable with saying they were into at least some aspects of it again.

So much of AEW's initial energy was built on being a WWE alternative......but at some point you need more than "we're not WWE" to maintain a regular viewing audience.